My Laptop came with Windows 7 Home Premium, but I decided to upgrade to Ultimate for the Remote Desktop, and the network backup, and even though these are minor things it is still worth it.

Windows Vista was, for most people, a bit of a disappointment, but to be honest I didn't have any problems with it. But anyway, it will make most computer run much faster. Although I can't directly compare it as I don't have this laptop running XP, but it seems that programs crash much fewer times, and it will also start up much quicker.

The interface as well is nicer than Windows Vista, and a massive step up from XP. The Aero peek feature, where you have a preview of the window when you mouse over it, is a welcome improvement, along with the bottom right button that lets you minimise all the windows at once quickly.

As I have mentioned the Remote Desktop feature is very useful over the Home Network, as when I want to work on a larger screen, I can just log on via my iMac and open office, turning my laptop into a dumb machine.

The Backup feature isn't the most comprehensive, and I might find myself investing in a better one, but it's decent for one bundled with an operating system.

I would strongly recommend that if your computer can support the upgrade from XP or Vista, that you do upgrade as Windows 7 is a much more stable platform, and you'll be able to run XP programs with Ultimate's XP Mode, but not all Computers will be able to support the upgrade.